DeSantis signs death warrant for expected sixth execution this year

TALLAHASSEE — In what would be Florida’s sixth execution this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a death warrant for an inmate convicted in the 1996 murder of a woman he met in an Escambia County bar.

Michael Duane Zack, 54, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Oct. 3 at Florida State Prison, according to information posted Thursday on the state Supreme Court website.

Zack was sentenced to death in the murder of Ravonne Smith during a crime spree that also included killing another woman, court records show. State and federal courts turned down a series of appeals over nearly two decades.

A 2017 Florida Supreme Court opinion in one of the appeals said Zack met Smith, an employee of Dirty Joe’s bar, on June 13, 1996. They wound up going to Smith’s house, where evidence indicated Zack hit her in the head with a beer bottle and then sexually assaulted her, the opinion said.